Friday, February 8, 2013

Highway to the 3Danger Zone

Released in 1986, Tony Scott’s Top Gun became a classic of 1980s pop cinema. Known for its slick production and hyper-adrenalized flight sequences, the film laid the groundwork for a particular type of modern action movie — turf that would later be explored with abandon by the likes of Michael Bay. Now, following in the footsteps ofTitanic and Beauty and the Beast, Paramount is releasing a 3D version of the film for a limited theatrical run with a Blu-ray on the way.

The company behind the Top Gun conversion is San Diego-based Legend3D. Having worked on films like Alice in Wonderland and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Legend3D specializes in taking traditional footage and converting it into 3D after the fact (even a film like The Amazing Spider-Man, which was primarily shot in 3D, needed some post-conversion when production required traditional photography for a certain scene or shot). We spoke with the company’s founder, Barry Sandrew, about the conversion of Top Gun, how Legend3D’s process works, and what could be keeping some moviegoers from embracing the format.

Followers

Barry B. Sandrew, Ph.D.

Founder - Graffiti Video, Inc.

BIOGRAPHY

This is a series of blogs by Barry Sandrew, Ph.D., an internationally recognized inventor, digital imaging expert and visual effects pioneer. Dr. Sandrew is founder of three visual effects facilities that were among the largest and most prolific production studios in Hollywood. Over the past three decades he has been and continues to be instrumental in evolving the entertainment Industry's digital standards and processes in feature filmmaking.

Sandrew earned his doctorate in neuroscience from SUNY at Stony Brook. After winning a 2 year NIH Fellowship at Columbia University, College of Physicians & Surgeons, he joined Harvard Medical School/MGH as staff Neuroscientist. In 1987, Sandrew left his academic and scientific career to found American Film Technologies (AFT) where he invented the first all digital process for colorizing black and white feature films.

At AFT he also invented a paperless animation process used to produce episodic animation for Fox Children's TV and a digital ink & paint and compositing pipeline that produced Spielberg's first digital animated feature film, "We're Back: A Dinosaur Story." Sandrew took AFT public while converting hundreds of movies for clients such as Turner, Disney, Warner Bros., Fox, Gaumont, TF1, ABC, and CBS, among many others.

In 1993 Barry Sandrew left American Film Technologies to co-found Lightspan, an animation and production edutainment studio that grew into one of the largest educational software companies in the U.S., marketing into entire school districts around the country. Lightspan ultimately went public and was later acquired by Plato Learning.

In 2000, Sandrew founded Legend Films, re-inventing colorization and a proprietary film restoration process using the latest in digital imaging technology. Over the course of the next 7 years, Legend Films converted to color approximately 145 black & white films as well as several TV series. Legend Films also produced visual effects for Scorsese's "The Aviator", HBO's "Entourage" and other high profile TV and film projects.

In 2007, with Jim Cameron's game changing "Avatar 3D" scheduled for a 2009 release, Sandrew leveraged his proprietary colorization pipeline, redirecting his company's entire R&D focus to embrace 2D-to-3D conversion and changing the company's name to Legend3D. Since 2010, Legend3D has lead the competitive field, producing 3D conversion and visual effects on over 35 of the highest performing box office tentpole films of the past 6 years.

In 2014, Dr. Barry Sandrew left Legend3D to focus on new immersive and web based media technologies as well his non-profit and for-profit board positions. He is consultant to Fortune 500 companies re: mobile 3D-sensing and motion tracking technology that he considers precursors to augmented reality. Most recently, he is Co-Founder and President/CEO of Graffiti Video, Inc. a company that is redefining the curation of web based media.